


SOS

by navaan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Trailer, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 14:37:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18573514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: The Avengers receive a distress signal.





	SOS

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Cap-IM Endgame Countdown. 1 DAY till it premiers! (Technically only hours for me!!)

Even weeks after the event they were still in the middle of clean up, of regrouping, of taking stock. Natasha and Steve were all that was left of their close-knit group of formerly runaway Avengers. But Thor and Rhodes and Banner were also here. Some Avengers had survived, and they still had an Earth to protect that was coming apart at the seams.

But Steve felt hollow.

Lost.

He'd lost so much in his life, but he never had _lost_ quite like this before. He won his battles even if he had to sacrifice. He had never been defeated so completely.

Thor looked much like Steve felt — lost and defeated. The Asgardian had lost half his people, and he'd failed to turn the tide although he came closer than any of the others Avengers. That must sting, to have come so close and failed by a margin.

Thor and Steve were the same in this. They didn't know what to do. Neither of them admitted it. Neither of them had to say it out loud for the rest of the team to see it anyway.

“There's...” Rhodes started. He was standing in front of the computer terminal with Bruce. They were still trying to unravel what the little device they'd found beside Nick's car was doing. Assuming it was a signal, Bruce had tried his best to find out what it was transmitting or where the transmission went. He'd been scanning the skies for a response, but so far he had no clue.

“What?” Steve asked.

“There's a signal. It's... distorted.”

Steve stepped over silently. Since Bucky had vanished in front of his eyes, since he had realized that Sam was gone, he'd been sleepwalking, trying to help where he could and offering support when he couldn't. The hollow feeling that had followed him since before he'd heard that Tony was missing had by now solidified into an unbreakable shell that kept him apart from everyone around him. The distance, Natasha had told him even before all this, had been there before — since he'd fallen out with Tony or perhaps since Steve had realized that Tony wouldn't use the phone, not if the world wasn't ending.

In the end, Tony never had the chance to call him even when the world had nearly fallen apart. 

Bruce had given back the terribly scratched phone, and Steve had been carrying around ever since like a token. It was part of his burden, and he'd carry it without complaint. But Steve couldn't go on like this. He had to find the strength in himself to pick himself up and fight back.

Somehow.

For all the people who were now gone. Names were still being confirmed months after, and reports kept coming in from around the world. The number of missing persons was steadily rising and gave a true scope of the disaster. 

“I think I can get a better signal of it,” Bruce said, typing beside Rhodes. “FRIDAY? Can you clear it up.”

“What is it?” Steve listened to the static, trying to figure out where the computer had picked up something in the noise.

“There's,” Rhodey started again, “a signal. From space.”

“Is it an answer? To Fury?” 

FRIDAY's voice explained: “Outer space relays are sending a distress call. It's an SOS.”

Everyone grew still suddenly. They'd been waiting for an answer, not a distress call. “From where?”

“It's...” Bruce's fingers worked on the controls so fast it was blinding. 

It reminded Steve of Tony.

“It's...” Bruce seemed to be struggling with giving it a name and both Thor and Natasha had picked up on their conversation and were joining them. “Far out. Edge of the solar system. No known NASA probe could make it that far.”

“Should we get the space raccoon?” Natasha suggested. “Might be one of his people?”

“SOS,” Steve said slowly. “Someone is sending an _SOS_ from outer space. You said it, _SOS_.”

Natasha blinked. Banner blinked. Thor just narrowed his eyes But then with a few pushed buttons, they could all hear the message. Sounds. Long and short. Morse. Familiar.

Rhodes exclaimed: “It _is_ an SOS!” Realizing what that might mean he turned; his eyes met Steve's, and Steve sees his own hope reflected back. 

“Tony,” Steve said, and for the first time in days, something pierced his shell, made his heart beat faster.

Natasha looked from one to the other. He knew what she was going to say — and she wasn't wrong to make sure they didn't get their hopes up just to have them crushed again. 

Carefully she poses the question: “After all this time, how likely is it that he's alive?”

Steve's teeth bury themselves in his lip, and he kept himself from snapping, just barely. 

“It's just as likely that this is an answer to Fury's signal,” Thor cautioned. Thor too had learned a thing or two about not getting his hopes up.

“We need to know what it is,” Rhodes argued. "No use guessing." 

“It's Tony,” Steve said, not sure where the conviction was coming from, but now that he can feel something he wasn't going to start doubting it. Just two days ago he'd sat in a room full of people mourning their loved ones to talk about his greatest regret and concluded: _We never made up. Another missed chance. I have to give up hope that he'll return. Most likely he's gone like Sam, like Bucky, T'Challa and all the rest. I need to let go and accept that I can never make this right again._

“You can't know this, Steve.”

“Not if we don't go looking,” he agreed and folded his arms in front of his chest, daring her to contradict him on this. When her usually unreadable gaze _softened_ , he realized he would have preferred contradiction. He looked to Thor, then Banner and Rhodes. “I'm not of use here. I'll go.”

“You are...”

“Natasha!”

“Someone has to go look what's going on. This could be the ace Fury had up his sleeve, or Tony... or god knows what. The last thing we need is another surprise from space.” Bruce's cheeks turned pea green from excitement, but Hulk didn't make a roaring appearance.

“I will go,” Thor said, and he wasn't looking at the others but at Steve.

“ _We_ will go.” Steve wasn't about to be left behind. 

Thor nodded. Steve nodded back. It was settled.

Rocket appeared in the door. “What's the awful beeping noise? And does anyone know who this is?”

He flipped open a device that looked like a bulky patchwork pocket watch made from yellow metal scraps. Blue light beams built up the way Wakandan Kimoyo beads would, but fell apart into a sizzling sphere. No picture formed, only a voice drifted out of the communicator. 

“Part of the journey is the end... ran out... oxygen'll run out... so, this is it. This is... far we got... Tell Cap that... drifting off.”

The voice was unmistakable. _Tony._

There was no way of knowing when Tony had recorded the message, or if he was still alive. The SOS might still be broadcasting, while —

“Thor! Now,” Steve _demanded_ , and nobody — not even the thunder god was going to contradict him on this. Taking one look over Banner's shoulder to confirm the triangulated coordinates of the signal's source, Thor nodded and the next moment the ax was in his hand and the room sizzled with energy. Thor's eyes were molten blue, electricity springing from and surrounding his form. It looked even stranger as he was clad in jeans and a light beige jacket. 

Steve shouldered his shield and held out his hand. “Now!”

“Take space suits, for god's sake,” shouted Rhodes.

The last thing, Steve heard was Banner saying: “It's not like we have any...”

Then the world narrowed down to light and colors, the smell of ozone and a rush that squeezed his lungs until breathing was hard and the world returned, he walked forward with Thor and metal encased them, Thor's lightning springing into it, making machines overload and sparks fly until it all settled.

A warning sound started up at near-deafening volume. 

The air was stale and cold — and thin. 

“Steve,” Thor warned. He didn't seem to have any trouble breathing. He indicated a panel that was glowing red and showing signs that made no sense to Steve.

But stumbling, unable to fill his lungs with air, Steve had seen something else. A hunched over form of a human sitting beside a window with nothing but blackness and stars behind him. Nothing would stop Steve from getting there.

"Tony!"

He stumbled, fell on one knee when he got there heaving for breath. 

Pale and face, Tony looked like a frozen corpse, head lolled to the side. "Tony!"

He touched his face, shook him, startled when brown eyes opened and the man jumped.

"That's not..." Tony stared, coughed. "I knew you'd haunt me when I drifted off."

Steve caught movement in the corner, and a very blue person unrolled herself from a pilot's chair to look at him. "I can see him too," she said. Around her bits and pieces of panels and cables had been sorted, parts of Iron Man and the ship, tools. It looked like the two had worked until they couldn't anymore.

"I'm here, Tony."

Tony blinked startled. Behind Steve, Thor walked up to look over his shoulder.

"Did you get my call?" Tony asked, voice raspy. 

Steve couldn't help it. He leaned forward to brush his lips against Tony's. Tony froze, but as Steve pushed himself up, pulling Tony to his feet by the arm, he went along without protest. He could barely stand on his own could barely stand, and stumbled right into Steve, clung to his shoulders. That Steve steadied him with an arm around the back, that it looked and felt like an embrace was incidental, but Steve knew he wasn't going to let go before Tony was safe.

The alien was on her feet too, and Thor caught her by the arm. 

"Home," he said and waited for Thor to open the way for them.

The appeared in the middle of the compound where they'd started their journey, glass walls shattering around them with Thor's power shaking the foundation of the house.

"We have a lawn," Natasha suggested dryly before she saw Steve, who was holding Tony in a tight embrace and Tony, who has his arms around his neck and his face buried against his chest.

"Welcome home," Steve told her, allowing himself only a split second to lean his face against the mop of dark, sweaty hair. 

Stirring in his arms, Tony pushed away from him to look around, the shards of glass all over the floor, the handful of gathered Avengers, he spared a glance and nod for his blue companion and noticed the frowning raccoon that stood by Natasha's side without so much as a blink. Steve was still holding him up.

"You _are_ real," he finally said. "I wasn't sure if it was the dehydration or lack of oxygen." 

"I told you I'd be there when you needed me."

Bruce carried a glass of water over, made Tony drink in slow sips before they led him to a chair where Bruce could look him and his blue friend over.

"Cap?" Tony asked.

"Hmm?"

"You're holding his hand," Bruce pointed out without looking at either of them.

He hadn't realized, but he tightened his grip now and said: "Not letting you off on your own again, ever again."

Tony stared, blinked, sank back in his chair. "Fine," he said and leaned back.

There were smiling faces all around them — something none of them had seen in a long time. Steve didn't mind.

He had only eyes for the man he'd thought he'd lost and it would be a long time before he let him out of his sight.


End file.
